


Glass Ocean

by acidbathh



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware, SCP Foundation
Genre: Everyone lives, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No beta we die like mne, Not A Game AU, Past Child Abuse, Post-Game/Post-Canon, at least in their own way, benrey has no concept of human gender, benrey uses all pronouns, character tags are based on whos important to the story at the time, every1 copes with it differently, everyone has PTSD, i am struggling with the title sm pls bear with me, the title is weird might change it idk, will be updated with later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28380690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acidbathh/pseuds/acidbathh
Summary: Gordon didn't really know what to do at this point. Benrey was back, asking for help because he was being chased by fuckin' Black Mesa 2, and now it's come to light that he's a little stalker or some shit, following him home, breaking his door down and having Bubby set some field agent's hands on fire. 'Why me?' He thought. 'What have I done to deserve this?'[Title is subject to change. Previously "Afterlife of the Halflife".][HLVRAI/SCP Crossover.]
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman, Bubby/Dr. Coomer (Half-Life)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 88





	1. Wrecking Ball

**Author's Note:**

> yeah. 
> 
> content warnings for this chapter: uhhh some guys kinda get their hands set on fire and its mentioned with a couple of details, but it's not graphic or anything. 
> 
> preemptive content warnings for: past child abuse

It'd been a year since they'd left Black Mesa, and while things weren't entirely normal now, they were different. 

The Science Team and Gordon were issued new (purely legal) identities, courtesy of Gman, and moved away from their previous homes in New Mexico and instead moved to New York. If Gordon was to get used to weird, what with the rest of the science team with him, then he guessed New York would be the place to go, after all. 

Gordon got situated with Joshua in his new apartment and had been living there for a year. Bubby and Coomer lived an apartment a couple of floors down from Gordon, and Tommy moved back in with his father after the incident for a while. Darnold lived in a new home he'd bought for himself deeper in the city, and Forzen was nowhere to be found. 

Bubby got a job as a pyrotechnic scientist, while Coomer and Darnold got teaching jobs, with Coomer becoming a professor at a university, and Darnold becoming a science teacher. 

Gordon got an office job for a while, but left because it only worsened his depression, and since then, has hopped around from job to job, trying to find something that didn't absolutely kill him inside. He would have loved to find something to do with science, but he couldn't really find anything that fit the fields he specialized in, namely physics and theoretical physics. 

He considered getting a job as a physics teacher, but he didn't really have that many qualifications to teach, and he didn't think he would be able to handle something like that for very long. All those kids in front of him, constantly expecting him not to mess up, having to talk to the other teachers, having to build a curriculum, grade papers, all of it was too anxiety inducing and he was still struggling so much after everything that had happened. He was tired. He desperately needed a break, time to recuperate, time to get his shit together so that his son didn't have to see him constantly tearing apart at the seams, because he knew Joshua saw that and Gordon knew that he didn't understand what was happening to his father but it hurt to see him like that, and he didn't really know how to help. 

Everything was over, but it still felt like it was still happening, in nightmares, in flashbacks, when the lights turned off unexpectedly, when he woke up on his closet floor because the only comfortable place he could sleep and feel safe was on the cold, hard ground.

One time, the lights on the subway went out for a few seconds, and Gordon stopped thinking. He froze, his mouth went dry, his hands shook. His arm was hurting in the circular scar left around it, and he cradled it in his left hand. He heard someone crying, and thought to himself, 'well, at least I'm not alone in being afraid of the dark'. But when the lights turned back on, the only person crying was him. 

He avoided eye-contact with everyone else on the subway as he wiped his tears and tried to get off as soon as possible. Good thing he was on his way home from work, instead of to somewhere else. When he got home, he shut the front door behind him, leaned on it, and cried. 

Bubby got it, he really did. 

Gordon didn't really expect it, but when he thought about it, and the kinds of abuses that he must have gone through as some kind of fucked up test-tube baby back in Black Mesa, it made sense. He's probably never even been outside his entire life, and he was at least sixty years old. From what he knew, Coomer had to teach him about life outside of Black Mesa, and he still had a whole fuck-ton to learn. 

They bonded over it. 

Bubby would listen to Gordon about his feelings over coffee, even though Gordon seemed to develop a caffeine addiction, and Gordon would listen to similar war-stories that Bubby had to offer, and they bonded. 

It wasn't really fine, but they grew close because of what had happened in Black Mesa, and telling stories about it and coping with it together brought them ever closer as friends. 

Tommy and Coomer were always the welcome distraction for the two of them. They were kind and always had something new to talk about, and would also listen to them when they talked about their trauma with Black Mesa. Tommy also had trauma to speak of, that he would share sometimes, but it wasn't related to Black Mesa or the resonance cascade, so he didn't really talk about it too much. To him, that was worse than Black Mesa, and that was okay. Everyone was traumatized differently. 

Darnold always had advice that his therapist had given him to offer to anyone who was struggling. He'd been with the guy for several years and unfortunately had to leave him when he was forced to relocate after the resonance cascade incident, but since he was with him for so many years, he had tons of little quotes and tidbits and pieces of advice he had collected in his thoughts and in his journals that he tried to apply to everyone's day-to-day lives when they were struggling. It didn't always help as much as he'd hoped, but he was trying to help, and that's really what meant a lot to everyone.

Everyone wasn't exactly okay, but they were managing, and they were on the path to being okay after Black Mesa. 

And then one year and a couple of months after the resonance cascade, Benrey came crashing back into everyone's lives. 

It happene when the group were all getting ready to watch movies together in Gordon's apartment, Joshie already in bed and it being time for the adults to have fun watching a grown-up movie with their swear words and grown-up juice. 

They hadn't gotten five minutes into the movie when they heard screaming outside of the apartment. They were a little confuse, but didn't think too much of it considering they were in New York, people screamed all the time for a myriad of reasons that didn't entirely related to getting stabbed, sometimes they were on drugs or drunk, or just being stupid or weird because this was New York. They didn't really question anything until they heard feet stomping down the hall, running, and that's when they got nervous. 

Pounding on the door ensued, and that's when everyone started getting really worried. Joshua woke up, and Gordon got up to try and hurry him back to his bedroom in case something bad was about to take place, telling him to call 911 if something really bad were to happen to anyone. 

Bubby was about to go and open the front door, but he no longer needed to when the door was suddenly broken down, presumably by someone intentionally crashing into it and breaking it with their body. 

The person was incredibly dirty, thin, and pale. They had long, matted black hair and broken and uneven black fingernails with skin that almost looke grey. Then they looked up, and things started making a little less sense than they already did. 

The face looking back at them with the most terrified expression they had ever seen on this person was Benrey.

His yellow eyes were wide, his pupils small and his breath and his whole body shook with his words as he crawled forwards, grabbing onto Bubby's pant leg as two armed men in suits ran in front of the broken doorway, brandishing strange guns. 

"PLEASE." Benrey yelled, never having sounded that desperate in his entire life. "DON'T LET THEM GET ME."

Bubby looked horrified and scared and confused, and he looked back to the rest of the group, who looked just as scaredly bewildered as he. 

The the men in suits didn't back down. "Bring him to us safely and nobody gets hurt." One of them said. Bubby looked from Benrey's dirty body and terrified expression to the two armed agents chasing him and knew that something akin to Black Mesa had to have been going on. 

"...Benrey?" Gordon said, breathless when he realized who he was looking at. "What the FUCK!" He yelled, looking even worse than before. Coomer tried to grab him and calm him down, but Gordon was already stomping up to Benrey, fuming, looking like he was going to tear him apart. 

"What the FUCK." He said. "You have SOME fucking NERVE showing up here and asking for help, I don't care HOW fucking dirty you are." He jabbed a finger into Benrey's face, angry and upset to see Benrey again. "I know, I know, I know--" Benrey was cut off by Gordon. "You think you know?" Gordon said, the venom in his voice dripping like rainwater off the gutter. He laughed bitterly, and continued, "You don't know ANYTHING of what you have done to us. You know so much nothing of what you've done I would go so far as to say you don't even really know us at all." His fists were balled. "After everything you did, you think that we're just going to help you? Really?" Benrey only looked worse for wear at that, looking back and forth between the agents and Gordon. "No..." He said, looking tired and putting his head in his hands. 

"No, nobody's expecting anything, look," He paused, trying to collect his scattered thoughts, but it was hard when he's barely spoken to another person in a year. "Look, look, I'm trying--What I'm trying to say is that, like, I, I didn't have a choice. I didn't want to choose any of this, I wouldn't have done anything but I had to because, because, b-because..." He struggled to speak further, and Gordon only got angrier, interpreting his stuttering as trying to find excuses on the spot, badly. 

"Because what?" Gordon said."Because I'm still so unbelievably unclear on why you did anything. What, you had to stop me for my fucking passport because, because why? You had to cut my fucking ARM off because why? Do you have excuses for literally any of this, Benrey? Because it doesn't seem like you do. It just seems to me, like you just want to jump back into our lives like nothing ever happened so you can fuck us over again, and I'm not fucking having it." Gordon spat and turned his back to Benrey. He walked over to a worried looking Tommy and Coomer, and while his walk was confident and angry, his face was tired and he looked close to a breakdown just from seeing Benrey, and from once again trying to make sense of him. 

Benrey looked to Bubby again tearfully, who was unsure of what to do, but nothing mattered at that point, because Benrey was shot with one of those strange guns that the agents were armed with. 

Out of the guns shot a couple of darts, and as Benrey's grip and expression loosened and he fell to the floor, unconscious, it was clear to Bubby what was going on. 

They weren't trying to kill him. Something akin to Black Mesa was happening here, and he wasn't having any of it. He wouldn't wish that on anyone, even Benrey.

And he knew what they did to things like Benrey. 

The agents carefully stepped forwards, waiting until they knew that Benrey was completely unconscious before making any moves to grab him, and that's when Bubby st their hands on fire. Coomer and Tommy yelled, and Gordon turned around to see what the commotion was, while the agents screamed in pain. 

Bubby picked up Benrey with ease and shoved him into Coomer's arms against Gordon's protesting, and Bubby let the agent's hands go out, the smell of cooking flesh filling the room while their skin melted. Bubby opened the broken front door while they writhed in pain on the entrance floor and shoved them out of the apartment, threatening to set them on fire and kill them if they tried anything else with Benrey. 

Bubby turned around, knowing the agents were too injured to try and shoot him or anyone else with those darts, and looked to the incredibly bewildered group of people behind him. "Well?" Bubby said. "What are you waiting for? Someone get to work on fixing that door the best we can, we don't have all night for movie night." He said.

And with that, Tommy and Gordon began working quietly, not (openly) judging Bubby's judgement at the time, leaving everything to be figured out later. 


	2. All Filler, No Killer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is somewhat of a filler chapter to fill up details really. Skippable, but provides description of what Benrey looks like and some insight onto his thought process a little. He cuts his hair.

After a couple of hours, the door was fixed with some cardboard and plans to talk to the building manager about it the next day. 

For now, Benrey was deeply unconscious on Gordon's couch, getting dirt all over it, and Gordon hated it, desperately questioning Bubby's motives here. 

"Gordon, you know the stories I've told you about Black Mesa?" He asked. Gordon nodded. "Yeah, they were horrific." He said. "We did all of that to Benrey, and creatures like him." He said. Gordon looked worried. "What do you mean 'we'?" He asked. Bubby just gave him a knowing look. Gordon only looke more and more upset by the second. "You mean--" He said, and Bubby nodded. Gordon looked back to Benrey. "Why?" He asked. Bubby just gave a half-hearted shrug as he leaned against the wall. "'For science'." He quoted. "I was convinced I was doing the right thing. Though, I didn't do very much, for the most part, I was a stand-in for other scientists that couldn't make it, while I was forced to undergo my own testing and work on my own projects." He said bitterly. 

Gordon just looked at him like he was processing everything that bubby was saying. "Okay," He said. "What does this have to do with what's happening now, though?" Gordon said, but it seemed like he already knew the answer to that question. Bubby answered it anyways. 

"Whoever those agents were working for, they wanted him for those same reasons." He said. "They wanted to 'work' on him. See what made him tick. Wanted to make him theirs." Gordon wasn't entirely sure how to interpret that last sentence, but he didn't ask. "Those darts are likely going to keep him out for the rest of the night, probably well into the next day as well. We can talk to him about it and probably get him a fucking bath then." He said. "Kid doesn't fucking smell good." He said, with a small smile and Gordon laughed weakly, looking back at Benrey, worried, but suspicious. 

He knew he wasn't going to sleep that well that night, and asked Tommy to stay over with him, who had to sleep in the same bed as him since Benrey was on the couch. He was fine with that though, he just wanted to feel safe again, which Tommy understood.

The next day, Gordon woke up at around five in the morning, which was whatever. Tommy woke up at around nine, and Joshie at ten. The three of them were unsure of what to do with the dirty creature who was unconscious on their couch. Bubby came over again at around noon, as it was his day off, but Coomer had class that day, so he had to come over later. Mostly they just watched over Benrey and talked about what they were going to do with him. It wasn't until around one-thirty in the afternoon that he woke up. 

Benrey groaned, laying down on the softest thing he'd ever laid down on, his head pounding. The lights were too bright, and he hissed, his skin turning black as an instinctual reaction. He covered his eyes, and Tommy made the move to close the curtains so that the sun didn't get in his face anymore, and he turned back to normal, at least physically. At least as normal as Benrey could be. 

Suddenly, he seemed like he was on high-alert mode, looking around as fast as possible, trying to take in as much of his surroundings as he could in a short time before landing on the group of people sitting at the dining table near the couch, and his eyes widened. He looked behind him, and there stood Tommy, still looking at Benrey from the curtains. He looked panicked. 

"This--This isn't real." 

Those were the first words that came out of Benrey's mouth since he showed up last night, and they seemed to carry a lot of weight by the way Benrey himself reacted to them. 

He looked around, biting his nails and tugging his hair as panicked and stressed stims, soon escalating to scratching his arms as the panic attack rose in severity. He kept looking around, remaining hypervigilant, but Tommy was the first one to start talking to him. 

"Hey, hey," He said, slowly walking towards Benrey. "I-it's okay Benrey," he said, "this is real, and nothing is-it's not gonna-nobody's going to hurt you o-or anything like that." He got close enough to try and put a hand on Benrey's shoulder, but Benrey flinched hard and looked at Tommy with terrified eyes, so Tommy removed his hand. "It's safe here." He tried. Benrey shook his head. "No, no, no, it's the dreams again, it's okay. Everything's fine. I'm not safe but I don't have to be." He looked away as he said this, shaking his head and covering his eyes with his hands. 

Gordon looked over to Bubby with a confused expression, mouthing, "What the hell does that mean?" Bubby seemed pensive, shrugging. 

Tommy didn't really know what to make of this, and looked over to Bubby and Gordon, concerned. He tried again. 

"Hey, I promise this is-it's real, okay?" Tommy said, kneeling down in front of Benrey, trying to grab his attention. "You always say that but there's no proof, it's not real." He said, curling up into a little ball on the couch and refusing to look at anyone. His expression was unreadable. "Here, you want proof this isn't a dream?" Tommy said, and he grabbed Benrey's hand and squeezed it as hard as he could, Benrey yelping in pain. "You-you can't feel pain in dreams, Benrey, that's how-that's why-that's how you know it's real." 

The pain was admittedly grounding...

Benrey gave Tommy a sad expression. 

"This is all real...?" He said, in the softest, saddest voice anyone in the room had ever heard. Tommy looked a little worried, still holding Benrey's hand, and said, "Yeah, i-it's real, but it's okay." Benrey just looked upset. 

"I'm sorry." He croaked. Tommy looked a little confused, but realized he was probably trying to apologize for what happened in Xen. "It's okay." Tommy tried, but Benrey shook his head. "No, it's not?" He laughed bitterly. "I got Gordon's fuckin' arm cut off!" He gestured to Gordon, who instinctively grabbed the scar circling his arm and looked away. Benrey hugged himself, slouching over. He looked defeated. "Benrey, I--y-you had to do what you did." Tommy tried echoing what Benrey had said before, but Benrey just looked up at Tommy with venom in his voice and his expression. "That doesn't mean it was right!?" He spat. "That doesn't somehow make it a good thing, or, like, exempt me from personal responsibility, Tommy. That just means that I was forced to do it because, b-because, b-..." He trailed off, drawing in a shaky breath and closing his eyes. He wrapped his arms around himself again and tried to breathe. Tommy couldn't tell if he was angry or on the verge of another panic attack. 

Gordon piped up, walking over. 

"What do you mean you were forced to do it?" He kept a safe distance from Benrey. Benrey just shook his head. "I can-I can't--I-I-I fuckin can't--can't talk about it." More shaky breathing. "Why not? You think someone will come get you or something? Or are you trying to buy yourself time to make excuses." Gordon narrowed his eyes at Benrey, who wasn't even looking at him. Benrey didn't respond. 

Tommy tried to do damage control. "Hey, Gordon, t-try to go a little easy on him." He said softly. Gordon glared at Tommy, but didn't say anything because he knew he was probably right. Tommy looked at him with a worried expression before Gordon took a deep breath and sighed. "You're probably right. I'm just..." He looked at Benrey on the couch, his expression worried, scared, waiting for Benrey to pull something like he did in Xen again. "I know." Tommy said, putting a hand on Gordon's tense shoulder. Gordon looked away and didn't say anything else. 

"I did it because if I didn't, they would have killed me." Benrey said quietly. He didn't look up at them. "That's the long of the short of it." Bubby sat at the table with an unreadable expression. Gordon and Tommy looked to each other, exchanging expressions. 

"Okay," Bubby said. "Whatever we are going to talk about can happen after a shower of some kind." He walked over, grimacing. Tommy and Gordon laughed, and Benrey looked a little confused. "You need a bath, dude." Gordon said. "I don't know what you've been doing lately, but you're covered in dirt and grime and it's so gross and you smell bad." The sudden shift in mood only confused the hell out of Benrey and seemed to make him a little uncomfortable. 

"Y-you know how to take a bath, right?" Tommy asked. Benrey shrugged, and not taking that as a no, Tommy then took his hand and pulled him up off the couch, and shoved him into the bathroom down the hall. "I'll get you some clothes for when you're done." He left, and Benrey was alone in the bathroom. 

Tommy popped in a few minutes later with a pair of grey sweatpants and an orange sweatshirt. "Thanks." Benrey said, before Tommy closed the door, and he continued looking at himself in the mirror and examining himself. 

His fingernails were black, but you could still see all the dirt underneath them if you tried. His skin was so dirty, his original light greyish-human skintone was unrecognizeable in most places, especially his face. The only place you can really recognize it are under the tear tracks, where his tears from the earlier panic attack made little pathways in the dirt on his face. The bags under his eyes were heavy, and there were scratches and stubble on his face. His white shirt was torn and had holes in a lot of places, and so did his white sweat pants. You wouldn't even be able to tell that they were white, they were so dirty and stained. They were covered in a myriad of things, like dirt, and blood so dried and old it might as well have been brown or black instead of red, there were some food stains from when he actually managed to get himself food, but for the most part it was just dirt and blood. There were leaves and stickerburrs and sticks and grass in his shoulder-length hair, and he thinks he saw a bug crawling on it earlier. It itched like hell. He itched in a lot of places, actually. 

He turned to the bath. He'd wasted enough of everyone's time looking at himself in the mirror, and moved to turn on the bath's faucet. The stream of water came out of the shower head, and he didn't bother switching it. He removed his torn and dirty clothing and stepped in, the warm water enveloping him. Warmer than he expected, warmer than he was used to. 

He took one of the scrub brushes from off the shower wall and scrubbed himself with it, watching as the brown, dirty water circled down the drain, and with every scrub and dallop of soap he used, he felt a little cleaner, but it wasn't enough. 

He didn't deserve to feel that clean, anyways, not after what he'd done. 

He stepped out of the shower, and grabbed one of the towels on the rack to dry himself off with, his long hair dripping onto the floor. The entire thing took about an hour, which is reasonable considering how dirty he was. He stood in front of the mirror again, this time clean enough to see his skin. His hair was still matted, and felt dirty, but at least it was cleaner than it was before. He didn't see anymore bugs or leaves or sticks in it, so that was probably a good sign. But it was still unsaveable. 

He saw a pair of scissors on the far side of the bathroom counter, in a cup near the sink, and got the idea to cut his hair. He liked the weight it gave him, but it was too long, too bad and unsaveable from all the knots and matts and everything living inside it, it was like a bird's nest. He grabbed the scissors and started cutting, not caring what it looked like in the end. He cut, and he cut, and he cut, watching large black chunks fall to the floor, not missing them as they separated from him.

When he was finished, his previously thick, upper-back length hair was cut all the way down to a very choppy shoulder length. At least, some of it was shoulder length. He liked it. He didn't know what to do with all the damp hair on the floor though, so he did what he could and picked it up and put it all into the bathroom trashcan next to the toilet. Some remained on the floor, but only in small pieces. 

Then, he finally put on the clothes that Tommy had given him and he stepped out of the bathroom, looking new, and like he got a haircut from a lawnmower. The clothes were too big for him, so he tied the drawstrings of the sweatpants together, which were hidden by the oversized sweatshirt that came down to his mid-thigh, and the sleeves fell over his hands. 

He walked back up the hall to where everyone was in the living room and dining room, and everyone looked at him. "What happened to your hair?" Bubby asked. Benrey shrugged. "Cut it." He said simply. "Too long, too dirty, too matted. Needed fixing." Gordon squinted. "And what did you do with the hair that you cut off?" He said. "Threw it away." Benrey replied. Gordon nodded. 

"Well, then," Bubby said. "I guess the real conversation can begin now." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah boring filler chapter, more to come in the next one hopefully


	3. Da Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rules are set. Mortal Kombat is played.

"Who the fuck were those guys who were coming after you?" Gordon started with the question on everyone's mind. He was sitting at the table, hands clasped in front of him, while Bubby and Tommy were standing near the table. Benrey, still standing at the entrance to the hallway, rubbed the back of his neck, looking like he didn't want to answer the question. "That's kind of a long story." He said nervously. "Well," Bubby said. "We have plenty of time today." He sat down at the table, crossing his arms. Benrey sighed, and walked over to the table and sat down, Tommy did the same. 

He avoided eye contact. "Well, after the--the big boss fight with me and you guys..." He paused. "Gman must have said something about this, but. He took me and brought me to another lab, similar to Black Mesa, but I didn't know what it was called, or where it was." Bubby's expression darkened, and Gordon watched him, unsure of what it meant. 

"What did they... Do there?" Bubby asked carefully, leaning forward. Benrey didn't answer, he just turned his head to look at the curtains Tommy had shut earlier, his exression dark and pensive. Tommy and Gordon exchanged curiously worried looks, while Bubby seemed like he knew what was going on. 

"Okay." Bubby said, in response to this. No one else knew what Benrey's silence actually meant except for Bubby. "How do these men relate to that facility you went to?" He asked. Benrey turned his head back, still not making eye contact, and he set his head in his hands, looking at the table. "They worked there as field agents." He replied. "Why were they chasing you?" "Because I escaped from the facility." Bubby raised his brows. "How did you do that?" This wasn't even a question of importance, he was just curious. 

"I set the building on fire."

"With what?" Bubby seemed almost impressed. 

"My mind." 

Bubby smirked, leaning forwards more. "I knew all those fires back in Black Mesa weren't just me." He said, but Benrey flinched at the mention of Black Mesa. Bubby seemed to take note of this and got back on track. 

"So, you set the building on fire and escaped, and that's why they're chasing you, correct?" Benrey nodded. "Where did you go after that?" Benrey shrugged. "It was mostly just a lot of forest." He said. "I spent a lot of time in forests and fields and-and-I ate bugs and slept in the dirt. I don't really know how long exactly, but it was a long, long time, though." Bubby nodded. "Would you go so far as to say it was close to a year?" He asked. Benrey nodded. "Yeah, for a few months it got so hot I couldn't really walk on the ground because I was barefoot, and I had to stay in trees because it hurt my feet." Bubby blinked, realizing he was talking about summer. "And now I can't walk on the ground normally because the ground is too cold and makes my feet hurt, with all that fuckin ice coming from the sky and shit." 

"Snow." Gordon corrected Benrey. "That ice coming from the sky is generally called snow." His voice was soft, and his expression and tone were as if he had reached a baffling realization about Benrey. "Have you never seen snow?" He asked. Benrey shook his head. "No, I, uh..." He paused, looking at Gordon for a second, but still not making eye contact, and then he looked away. "I lived in Black Mesa for pretty much my entire life. I've never been outside, not really, until now." He said, hand rubbing the back of his neck. Gordon blinked. "Huh." 

"Basically, these people are trying to bring you back to that location, and you want, what, protection? Hiding?" Bubby asked. Benrey shrugged. "I didn't really know where else to go." "How did you find us anyways?" Gordon asked. "We got, like, new legal identities from Gman and shit, we're supposed to be relatively hidden." Benrey hummed, looking more sheepish. "Well, I kind of, uh," He paused, thinking. "I made it to wherever this place is, and, well, I happened to uh, stumble across you walking down the street somewhere and I followed you home." 

Gordon blinked, and scoffed. "You followed me home!?" He laughed bitterly, and took off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose, sighing long and loud. "Jesus H. Christ." He said, sounding exasperated. Benrey seemed to know why what he did was weird, but didn't really say anything about it, he just rubbed the back of his neck, diffident. 

Bubby snorted. "Classic Benrey." Tommy laughed, and Benrey laughed nervously along with him, Gordon being the last to join in on the quiet laughter, still sounding exasperated. Gordon sighed again, loud and long, and said, "Oh, Benrey." He rubbed his eyes once more, putting his glasses back on. "You little fucking weirdo." 

Gordon didn't really know what to do at this point. Benrey was back, asking for help because he was being chased by fuckin' Black Mesa 2, and now it's come to light that he's a little stalker or some shit, following him home, breaking his door down and having Bubby set some field agent's hands on fire. 'Why me?' He thought. 'What have I done to deserve this?' 

"So, basically, we need to protect you from... Black Mesa 2." Gordon said, gesturing to a hypothetical Black Mesa 2. "Or something..." He squinted. "I mean, you don't need to or anything like that, I just..." He trailed off. "I don't want to go back there." Bubby reached out, putting a hand on Benrey's shoulder. "As long as I'm alive, you're not going back there, and I'm going to live forever." He smirked. Benrey looked up at him and seemed to smile slightly, but then looked back down. 

There was a pregnant pause. 

Gordon looked like he was trying to say something, but was afraid to say it. He started saying it, and then second-guessed himself, and then tried to say it again. 

"Who is he going to live with...?" Gordon asked, looking like he didn't want to know the answer to that question. 

Bubby shrugged. "He could live with me and Coomer." He suggested, and while Gordon looked relieved at that, Tommy piped up. "I don't think that would be a good idea." He said. "Why not?" Bubby asked. "You guys would probably get along... Too well." He said. "I feel like if you guys had to live together unregulated, you would burn the entire apartment complex down within hours." Gordon put his hands on his face. "Yeah, Tommy's right, you guys would destroy everything." He sighed. Bubby shrugged. "Can't help being an aquarium." Gordon laughed. "The word is 'aquarius', and you're a scorpio, but alright, Bubby." 

"He could live with Tommy." Bubby suggested. Tommy looked nervous. "Uh, no, I don't-I don't think that would be a good idea either." His eyes trailed off to the side. "Dad and Benrey, uh, not a good fit." "What do you mean?" Gordon asked. "They, and I cannot--I can't emphasi-stress this enough, do not get along, like at all." Tommy seemed dead serious on this, and it didn't seem like he wanted to go into detail. Gordon looked to Benrey, who still wasn't making eye contact, but he flattened his lips into a thin line, staring off somewhere. "Yeah--no. That's a bad idea." Tommy and Benrey did not elaborate. 

Then, Bubby and Tommy slowly turned to Gordon, who looked increasingly nervous. 

"No." He said. "No, no, no." "He has nowhere else to go, Dr. Freeman!" Tommy said, looking sad. "I really would have him at my place, but I don't have another place to live other than my dad's, and he and Benrey are really bad around each other." Bubby piped up. "I would, but apparently we'd burn the building down." Gordon put his hands under his glasses, over his eyes, setting his elbows on the table and he groaned, long and loud. 

"What, big Gordo can't handle lil Benrey?" Benrey tried joking, looking to Gordon. Gordon looked up, exasperated. "No! What if you eat my kid or something!" Bubby snorted. "Kids don't taste that good." Benrey said in a completely serious tone. "See? It's shit like this--I can't tell if he's joking or not, have you eaten a kid, Benrey?" He slammed his hands on the table, looking at Benrey, who flinched. "How many children have you eaten since leaving Black Mesa." Benrey nervously laughed. "Don't worry," He waved off Gordon's anxiety. "I haven't eaten any children." He paused. "Not that I know of." Gordon sat down in his chair, covering his face again. He groaned, loud and long, and said, "Okay, okay." He sighed again, and readjusted his glasses before looking at Benrey with a tired expression. 

"You can live with me. I have an extra guest bedroom, it's messy but it's useable enough for some kind of goblin thing like you." Gordon added, "Please, please do not eat my son." Benrey laughed. "I'm not going to eat your little spawn thing." He said. "Not until he's older, at least." Gordon melted into his chair. "Oh, okay." He said softly.

Everyone laughed, save for Gordon, who was too fucking tired to deal with what he'd just agreed to. 

Eventually, Tommy and Bubby went home after a couple more hours of talking about what life with Benrey was going to have to be like in order to keep him safe. 

While discussing everything, a list of rules for Benrey were created, much to his disappointment, but he understood that for the most part, they were to keep Benrey safe and Gordon sane.

**BENREY RULES:**

**Rule 1:** Benrey can not leave the house alone. He isn't even allowed to go out and check the mail or take out the trash by himself.

 **Rule 2:** If he were to leave the house, he has to do it with someone else, and a significant disguise of some kind to try and hide his identity. The current pandemic would be useful for this. 

**Rule 3:** Benrey cannot stand near windows, and must always keep curtains and/or blinds shut.

 **Rule 4:** Benrey is not allowed to talk to any of the other tenants in the building. Nobody else can know he is here, or know very much about him.

 **Rule 5:** Bubby, Benrey and Coomer were not to be left alone without Tommy or Gordon for very long. 

**Rule 6:** Joshua and Benrey were not to be left alone without another person with them for long. 

**Rule 7:** Benrey is not allowed to cook. He can prepare simple snack foods and use the microwave, but the oven and stove are off-limits.

 **Rule 8:** Benrey is not allowed to use the Sweet Voice on Joshua. 

**Rule 9:** Benrey cannot be very loud, especially at night, and he cannot make suspicous noises that would cause the other tenants to think that something is up. 

**Rule 9.5:** Benrey is not allowed to do something that would wake Gordon up in the middle of the night, or whenever he is sleeping, and cannot be loud or obnoxious when Gordon is sleeping. 

**Rule 10:** Benrey cannot joke about Gordon having lost his arm in Black Mesa. 

The rules seem pretty self explanatory, Benrey can't go outside or be an asshole to Gordon or Joshua. He understood a lot of them, but didn't get rule number ten very well. He didn't ask about it though, lest Gordon revoke his right to stay there or something. 

After that, Tommy and Bubby went back home, and left Gordon and Benrey alone. 

They were sitting on the couch, awkwardly, watching trash TV they didn't actually care about, Benrey still in Gordon's clothes. Benrey decided to start up a conversation. "Uh," He said. "Yo, you got PS plus?" He turned to Gordon, not making eye contact. Gordon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, I got PS plus." "Oh, yo, you got like Mortal Kombat and shit?" Gordon shrugged. "Probably, it's a PS plus exclusive game, I think." "Wanna play?" He asked. 

Gordon pondered for a minute, and thought it might be cathartic to kill Benrey in Mortal Kombat, if he can't do it in real life. 

"Yeah, I think I do, actually." 


	4. A Slice of Anomaly Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you get a slice of Benrey and Gordon's lives, but all of that is interrupted when the two strange agents from Benrey's arrival come back, and this time, they don't want violence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> watch how many times i can update since posting this like 2 days ago lol.............i have other WIPs i need to work on but this is the only one i'm inspired enough to work on right now sobs

It had been a couple of weeks since the previous events, and things had settled in some way, into some kind of routine. 

The guest room had been cleaned up a bit, and Gordon spent a whole day building an Ikea shelf to put some of the junk on, while Benrey sat there, really unsure of what to do because he didn't understand what the fuck Ikea was. He tried to help, but ended up making things worse, so he stopped and observed Gordon instead, trying to learn about him and use him as some kind of blueprint for how humans behaved. 

Benrey did that a lot over the coming time, watching Gordon do everyday tasks, like cooking and cleaning and listening to music, sometims even while he was sleeping and showering, which Gordon had to promptly kick him out. Benrey also tried to observe him while he was pissing, and Gordon had to chase him out with the threat of his hairdryer, which kind of looks like a gun. It didn't scare him exactly, but he understood the threat enough. 

It wasn't like Benrey didn't know what all of these things were, he just didn't understand how normal people did them, since he spent most of his life not living the life of a normal person. For all intents and purposes, he was not human in the same way that Gordon was, even if he was human in any non-logical or unscientific sense. Benrey did a lot of these same things that humans did, but he was so unsure of how people did them normally that he had to be sure he was doing things 'right', and thus constantly watched Gordon do things as a way to make sure he was doing things 'correctly'. 

Gordon had repeatedly assured Benrey that there was never really a 'right' way to do things like shower or use the bathroom or sleep, but Benrey had never been outside of Black Mesa before, he never got to interact with people that weren't scientists trying to observe him. When observing Gordon, he was merely copying the only example of humans he'd ever gotten--the people that observe. 

Benrey also watched Joshua. 

If he thought he knew nothing about the adult humans he was exposed to, he knew even less about children. 

Every time he and Joshua hung out, Benrey was constantly copying the things he did, doing as Joshua told him, and trying to observe him, because Joshua was... Interesting. 

Joshua was a five year old boy with curly brown hair and tan skin, like his father. He had a few freckles on his face, and his eyes were brown, unlike Gordon's, where his eyes were mostly brown, but had partially turned green as a result of the resonance cascade. Joshua was very excitable and hyper, and had a massive hyperfixation on cowboys. Gordon believed he had ADHD like him, but hadn't gotten him diagnosed with anything quite yet because he wanted to wait until he was a little older. 

Joshua was an interesting child, one that Gordon had stressed is a 'little monster', in the most endearing sense, because he always called him that with a soft, warm smile, and afterwards he'd usually say something like, "But he's my little monster." 

Gordon had bought Joshua all kinds of cowboy and horse related things, because they were his favourite. He'd watch all kinds of cowboy and horse related media, from watching My Little Pony to having his dad read him the Saddle Club books before bed some nights. He had one of those horse heads on a stick that you'd pretend to ride, and fake peacemakers, and a cowboy hat and boots and stuff. 

Benrey would partake in his play around the house while Gordon let them, and Gordon found observing Benrey just as interesting and fascinating as Benrey found observing Gordon, because watching him learn about things and try to imitate Joshua and other humans was immensely entertaining. He could watch Benrey try to do human things with little to no guidance for hours and not get bored. He played with Joshua a lot, too, when he had the time, and adding Benrey to the mix was another layer of fun, because every time Benrey tried to mimic Joshua and Gordon and got it wrong, it was funny every single time. 

Gordon also went out to help Benrey buy some clothes that would actually fit him, unlike the clothes he was given by Gordon, because they were too big. 

When going out, Benrey had to wear a hat, he chose a random university baseball cap Gordon had, and a black face mask, along with some science-nerd-pun t-shirt that Gordon had and a blue hoody that was definitely too big on him. The sweatpants he had were the same as the ones Tommy had given him when he first got there, and they were still too big. He wasn't a fan of the face mask, though he kind of understood why he had to wear one in public. 

They just went to a couple of thrift stores, because they were the only clothing stores that seemed to actually interest Benrey, and they came back with a fashion disaster. 

Benrey had gotten a couple of those button up Hawaiian shirts, some black and grey sweatpants, various terrible video-game related t-shirts, cargo pants and cargo shorts, flip-flops and sandals, and he found a chulo that he adored so much he wore it out of the store, forefeiting the old hat for the new one. 

The closet Benrey had in the guest room had a couple of old clothes that Gordon didn't seem to want anyore in there as well, such as some sweaters that would be too big on Benrey, and some pants that would also be too big on Benrey, but he still tried to wear them anyways, and fail. He hung up his thrifted clothes with the old ones Gordon had there, and combined with the shitty Ikea shelf, Benrey really felt like he was making it his own. In some ways, it felt like he was in Black Mesa again, what with being unable to leave, and kind of constantly being watched by Gordon, but he had the ability to go to his room whenever he wanted if he got too uncomfortable and Gordon wouldn't punish him for it, which was nice. 

It wasn't all good days, though. 

Sometimes, Benrey's habit of observing and mimicking got in the way of cooking and cleaning, sometimes whatever parts of work that Gordon might've had to bring home sometimes, or it would get in the way of him relaxing. Sometimes Gordon would snap a bit out of anxiety or frustration, and he would yell or in some cases even cry. What Gordon didn't see was the cracking windows or mirrors nearby when he got that upset. In a lot of cases, though, it would get in the way of his sleep, because too many times Gordon has awoken to Benrey just watching him sleep, and it gave him a lot of anxiety that Benrey was going to kill him in his sleep or something, which strained their relationship. Benrey tried to tell him that he wasn't going to do that, he was just watching, but when Gordon grabbed the scar that went in a circle around the middle of his right forearm, Benrey would usually drop it. 

He eventually stopped watching Gordon sleep. 

Sometimes, Gordon would wake up with horrific nightmares with anxiety that left him vomiting in the bathroom and eventually passing out on the bathroom floor. Benrey didn't think that was normal for humans, but didn't know what to do about it. Sometimes it woke up Joshua too, and while Benrey tried to get Joshua to go back to bed, it usually didn't work, and instead, when Gordon fell asleep, they'd usually try to get him a pillow and a blanket from his bed to help him sleep more comfortably. 

Sometimes, Benrey would walk around the house at night, because he didn't sleep as much as humans did, which is what gave him the ability to watch Gordon sleep in the first place. Since he'd stopped doing that, he needed something else quiet to do, so he walked around, and sometimes he would find Gordon asleep somewhere weird, like the closet floor, or on the hard tile of the kitchen floor. Benrey usually wouldn't touch him while he was sleeping, not since he'd stopped watching Gordon sleep, so instead he did what he usually did and got Gordon a pillow and a blanket to sleep with and hoped for the best, even if he didn't really understand what was going on with Gordon. 

Sometimes, Gordon was extremely distrustful of Benrey, even if they sometimes were comfortable around each other, which is reasonable. He didn't trust Benrey to have a knife or any other kind of weapon, and forbade him, even adding that to the rules of things he couldn't do, making that rule 11: 

RULE 11: Benrey must not have a knife, gun or any kind of other weapon, like a baseball bat or hammer. 

He kind of understood where Gordon was coming from, but at the same time didn't really, because, well, where would he have gotten a gun? Gordon didn't own one, he himself stated that he hated the sounds of guns ever since the resonance cascade, they made him too nervous, and even gave him flashbacks sometimes. 

Benrey didn't know what a flashback was, so one day, he asked. 

"Oh, uhm," Gordon said. "It's something that comes with PTSD, Benrey." He sat back on the couch as he changed the channel from the movie they were watching. "Oh." Said Benrey. "What is PTSD?" Gordon raised an eyebrow at him, but Benrey wasn't really looking at him. That was one of his habits, Benrey never really looked at people or looked at them in the eye when he was talking to them. He just thought Benrey was nervous or something when he'd first got here, but that was just a Benrey thing. 

"PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. It's when someone goes through something really traumatizing, and because of it, their memories of the event can get all fucked up, so when something that reminds that person of the trauma that happened, it can sometimes make them think that the trauma is happening all over again, and they'll sometimes see images or, like, 'brain videos' or something of the event or events, or sometimes they just get really, really scared, or sometimes they can feel things happening to their bodies again, even though none of that is actually happening." 

"Oh." Said Benrey. "I get that sometimes." He put a finger to his chin, looking up, like he was thinking. Gordon thinks he got that from a cartoon or something and was mimicking the action. "Oh, I'm sorry dude. That can't be fun." He said. Benrey shrugged, looking to Gordon, and then looking back at the TV. "It's whatever." He said, sounding utterly neutral. "Can you tell me what things might trigger flashbacks for you? We can avoid them so you don't get them." Benrey put his finger back on his chin and thought for a moment. "A lot of times, it happens when I see needles, or when people grab my wrists or try to pin me down, or if someone locks me in a small place like a closet or something. Sometimes labcoats, too." 

Gordon was reminded of one time where, as part of the game he, Joshua and Benrey were playing, Benrey got sent to 'jail', which was just a closet, and he had to stay there for a few minutes. When Benrey came out, though, he was crying and freaking out, and didn't really seem to know why. Gordon knew why, now. 

"Oh, that's what that was..." Gordon said, looking apologetic. 

"It's whatever." He said, calmly. He didn't even sound like he was upset and trying to hide it, he just sounded completely and utterly neutral on it, which was really bizarre. 

"What triggers your PTSD?" Benrey asked. Gordon blinked. He had a comprehensive list of things that triggered his PTSD, that could be kind of long, and included things that wouldn't normally show up in every day life, so he just went with the biggest ones he could think of. "Well, I, uh, this is probably gonna sound really dumb, but the dark. I'm afraid of the dark," He looked sheepish, grabbing his right arm before continuing, "and gunshots. Soldiers a lot of times, too, and violent animals, loud sounds like crashing or pounding or something, and sometimes excess amounts of blood, and when people talk about removing limbs or something..." He looked embarrassed for some reason, Benrey couldn't figure out why. 

"That's a lot." He said, just making an observation. "Yeah, but I can't really help it." "I think I can avoid those things." Benrey said, looking to Gordon for a split second, before looking back at the TV and smiling. "T-thanks, Benrey." Gordon said, half expecting Benrey to make fun of his triggers or something, but that was a really nice surprise. Knowing this, he sat a bit more comfortably next to Benrey. 

The next couple of days were surprisingly calm, actually. Joshua was having a birthday sleepover with one of his friends that was going to happen until Sunday evening, and it was only Friday night, so they'd had some time to relax a little bit before he got back and things got chaotic again. 

Benrey and Gordon managed to be relatively civil with one another, while Benrey silently observed him and tried to mimic him, and sometimes failing miserably. 

They were eating breakfast one morning, when Gordon got curious about something. 

"Hey," He said, looking up from his cereal. Benrey didn't look up. "Hm?" He said, still eating. "You haven't used the sweet voice whatever in a while. Why is that? You used it a lot in... That place, why aren't you using it now?" Benrey shrugged. "Thought it might be too annoying for you or something." Gordon tilted his head. "No, actually, I think it's kind of nice." He said. Benrey raised a brow, briefly looking at Gordon. "You do?" Gordon nodded. "Yeah, it's like this nice, operatic singing. I think it's pretty neat. Also it's edible and used as a form of language, and that really confuses me to no end, honestly. I'd like to know more about it, really." Benrey hummed, a little bit of blue sweet voice bubbling out. 

"What do you wanna know?" Benrey asked. Gordon shrugged. "Start with the basics, why is it called sweet voice?" He asked. Benrey shrugged. "Becau-" He was cut off by a knock at the door, and since the dining table was close to the front door, he immediately ducked up under the tablecloth, which Gordon got as a means of hiding Benrey and for that reason only, while Gordon went to check who was at the door. 

Gordon got up, and pulled his hair out of his face and over his shoulder, walking to the door. He adjusted his glasses and tried to hide behind the door in such a way that didn't give away the fact that he is currently in his boxers in the case he was going to open it, and peered through the peep-hole. 

His blood froze, and he walked back to Benrey under the table. 

"Code red." He whispered, gently lifting the tablecloth. "Whuh?" Benrey asked. "Code red!" Gordon hissed, and Benrey panicked. "I don't remember what I'm supposed to do in this situation!" He whispered. "You can shapeshift, shapeshift into something inconscpicuous!" Benrey took a deep breath and shifted into the closest he could get to a mouse, which looked a little fucked up, and tried to hide. 

Gordon heard the knocking at the door again and yelled, "Coming! Just a second!" And he threw on some pants as a subtle reason why he didn't open the door sooner, and he opened the door, looking extremely nervous. 

"Dr. Freeman." One of the agents said, in a deep voice. "U-uh, h-hello!" Gordon tried, looking and feeling like he was about to have a panic attack. "H-how can I, uh, help you t-today?" The agent on the left held up his horribly scarred hand as to silence him, and Gordon gulped, his eyes going wide. 

"We are not here to attack you." He said. "In fact, we would like to take you to our facility nearby to ask you a few questions." Gordon was confused. "What? What facility?" He said, extremely suspicious. "We would like to ask you a few questions about the Resonance Cascade you and a few other scientists experienced, and the affects of said anomaly." The other replied. Gordon squinted. "Y-you've got the wrong Dr. Freeman, that wasn't me." He said, trying to forget about anything involving the Resonance Cascade. He tried to shut the door, but one of the agents put his basically mutilated hand in the doorway and stopped it from shutting. "We know you have gotten new identities from the man who calls himself Gman." He said. "We have no intention of exposing you to anything like the authorities or getting you arrested, or into any kind of legal trouble. We are simply researchers trying to research the affects of the Resonance Cascade on people who were directly involved in it, and you, Dr. Freeman," The agent pulled the door open. "Were essentially the direct instigator." Gordon squinted. 

"You think I fucked all that shit up?" He spat. "I had nothing to do with causing the Resonance Cascade other than the fact that I was just doing what I was told! It was Black Mesa itself that fucked up, trying to pull this bullshit that got everyone killed, o-open a portal to an-an-an alien world or some shit, sure! Nothing will go wrong, I see nothing wrong with the fucking-the fucking, p-peeper puppies, and the ex-wives and the fucking-fucking-god fucking, f-fuck..." He realized that he'd just exposed himself as "the Resonance Cascade guy" to these strangers who wanted to 'ask him a few questions', and sighed exasperatedly, putting his hands over his eyes under his glasses and groaning. "Fuck." He said. "I have a fucking hair-trigger for that shit..." He breathed quietly. 

"We understand, Dr. Freeman." One of the agents said. "If you wouldn't mind, we would like to ask you a few questions about it back at our facility." Gordon nodded, and said, "Yeah, just let me get ready to leave." He shut the door behind him and grabbed a pair of shoes, his keys, and looked under the table for Benrey, who wasn't there. "Benrey?" He whispered. Benrey appeared next to him, back in his normal form. "What's going on?" He whispered. "Turn into that mouse thing or something again, we're leaving with those agents. They want to ask me a few questions about the resonance cascade, and I don't trust them to leave you alone." He said. Benrey nodded, and turned back into a mouse form and crawled onto Gordon's hand. Gordon grabbed a hoody to put over his orange sweatshirt, and he put Benrey inside of the front pocket, along with his phone and keys, and his wallet went into his back pocket. He threw on his shoes and opened the front door, where the agents were standing again. 

"I was half-hoping you guys would have just been some kind of figment of my imagination..." He said nervously. "I can assure you that we are quite real." One of them said. 

One interesting detail about these agents is that both of them looked the exact same. Gordon didn't really know what to make of that as they walked out of his apartment complex and into the sleek, black car that they directed him into.

Worry pounded in his gut as he was driven to whatever facility this was. 

Whatever it was, he had Benrey, so if they tried to pull any shit, they'd probably be ready. 


	5. The Interview

The car ride was tense, quiet and boring. Benrey couldn't seem to sit still in Gordon's pocket, and Gordon did everything he could not to squeeze Benrey so hard he popped just to keep him still so he wouldn't blow his own cover. 

When they got to the facility, it only made Gordon more anxious. 

It was a large, innocuous building with no signs on the front. There was a parking lot in front of it, but they didn't park there. They instead drove up to the curb, and the agent who wasn't driving got out of the car, and opened the door for Gordon, suggesting he get out, and he did. 

"My partner is going to park the car 'round back, he'll join us shortly." He explained. "For now, follow me to the interrogation room." The agent started walking towards the building, but Gordon was confused. He ran to catch up with the fast-walking agent. "What, are you guys like some kind of weird police or something?" He asked, getting pretty distrustful. "No." The agent said curtly. He did not elaborate. "What are you, then?" Gordon asked, as the agent opened the front door to the building. 

Inside was cold. He was glad he brought his hoodie now. The walls were grey, the off-white tile on the floor, with sometimes patterns of green tile or blue reminded him of his old elementary school. The fluorescent lights above buzzed, and he hummed along with them to balance out the noise in his head. 

"We are a foundation that sometimes works with law enforcement if necessary, but not to arrest the people we bring in. We collect anomalies to ensure the safety of the public." He said. "That doesn't really explain much for me..." Gordon said, as they walked down the halls. The agent made an inhumanly sharp left and continued walking. Gordon followed. "You don't need to understand it." He opened a door to what looked like a normal interrogation room and waved his arm inside. Gordon nervously walked in, wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into. 

The walls in the interrogation room were a darker grey than the rest of the halls. On the outside of the door, it read "Interrogation Room C", and it also said that in big, black lettering on the back wall. In the middle of the room was a metal table, with two chairs sitting opposite of it. On one side, welded to the table was a single hoop, where someone who was handcuffed would have to have their handcuffs chained to it, in case they try to escape. Gordon wasn't currently handcuffed, but this still made him very nervous. 

He sat down at the table, at the side that didn't have the handcuff-thing, just so he felt a little better, and the agent didn't question him, not yet at least. He sat at the other side, quiet. "What, aren't you going to ask me questions?" Gordon asked nervously. "We are waiting on my partner." He said. Gordon nodded. "O-oh, okay." 

A few minutes later, the partner in question walked into the room and shut the door behind him, moving to stand behind the first agent. 

"Can I just, uh, ask you guys a question really quick?" Gordon said. The standing agent held up his hand. "Just a moment." He pulled out a tape recorder from his pocket, and put a new tape into it before pressing the record button and setting it on the table. This just made Gordon even more nervous. "I-is that really necessary...?" The anxiety welling up in his gut showed on his face. "I am afraid so." The standing agent said. "We must record your testimonies to make sure we have the most accurate information available." Gordon didn't really see how that made sense, but shook his head. "Can I just ask for your names or something?" He asked. The agents looked at each other and nodded. "Sure." They both said in unison. 

The standing agent said, "I am agent Brick Roscoe, and this is my partner, agent Brick Roscoe." Gordon made a face. These agents not only looked exactly alike, but had the same fucking name? This brought to mind memories of the prototypes, and Gordon's clones and shit, and he just got even more nervous that what was at play here was going to be like Black Mesa all over again. 

"Who are you...?" He asked in a small voice. "Like, what is this place?" The sitting agent, Brick Roscoe, was about to answer, when Gordon cut him off. "-And please, don't say that it's not something I need to understand, just please tell me who you people are, who you're working for, what's happening, because if I don't get some idea of what's going on, I feel like I'm going to fucking lose my mind." Gordon was hugging himself now, a distressed look on his face. The agents did not soften, but they answered. 

"We are a foundation made to collect potentially dangerous anomalies to protect the public." The standing agent said. "We secure, contain and protect." Gordon realized what he'd gotten himself into, his forehead resting on his fingers. "Oh," He said, looking at the table. "You guys are the fucking SCP Foundation." His eyes were wide and he looked exasperated. "Correct." Said the sitting agent. "We are the SCP foundation." Gordon pulled his hands down his face, under his glasses, and sighed, long and loud. "Why me..." He said, under his breath. He then readjusted his glasses, and took in a deep breath before looking at agents Brick Roscoe and Brick Roscoe head on. 

"Okay, ask me your questions. I'm ready." He said. 

The agents exchanged looks between one another. "Alright, Gordon Freeman," The standing agent said, pulling a pad and pen out of his notebook and writing something down. Gordon wasn't sure what to make of that, honestly. "Who are you?" The agent asked, when he was finished writing. Gordon was completely taken aback by this question. "What do you mean 'who am I', you just said my name, I'm Gordon Freeman, despite what it says on the legal documents right now." "I see." He wrote something down on his notebook again, and Gordon eyed him suspiciously. 

"Can you recount the events of the resonance cascade for us?" He asked. Gordon thought about the rescas for a moment, and everything that happened afterwards. "Please include a detailed account, as detailed as you can give, including how you felt about the events taking place." Gordon looked nervously at the table, then up to the pairs of sunglassed eyes looking at him expectantly. "You do not have to worry about legal repercussions, if that is your worry." Gordon shook his head, sighing. 

"It all started when I was getting into work, in my company suit, and I was stopped by a security guard I'd never seen before." 

For the first time in a year, Gordon explained the full events of what happened during the resonance cascade and everything that followed afterwards. All the murder, the death, the weird shit he couldn't explain, Dr. Coomer, Dr. Bubby, Tommy, Gman, Darnold, Forzen, Sunkist, all of it. He explained in as much detail as he could, and how he felt about it. How terrified he was, the amount of stress he was under all the time, the nightmares he had almost constantly when he was stuck there, the soldiers trying to kill him and get rid of all of the evidence of the rescas that Black Mesa had left behind, his arm getting cut off and then later reattached by Gman, and how he now had pretty bad PTSD that was actively going untreated because he didn't have a therapist, the nightmares he has now, the panic attacks, the neverending anxiety, and... Benrey. Not Benrey now, but the things he'd done, and how badly they had affected him. He and Benrey weren't best friends in his eyes, but he still trusted him, so having him go all supervillain on him fucked him up. He just talked about all of it. He spilled over.

By the end of it, he was in tears, trying not to loudly and openly sob. The agents offered no emotional support, just listening to his story and writing notes down. 

After a bit of sobbing on Gordon's part, one of the agents produced a box of tissues from... Somewhere, and gave it to him. Gordon didn't even question where the tissues came from, he just accepted them and wiped his face and his nose and tried to calm down. 

Benrey was a heavy weight inside of Gordon's pocket, and he felt even heavier inside when he heard just how badly everything had affected him. 

"And..." One of the agents started. "This 'Benrey' character you've described. You care for him?" Gordon took a shaky breath before answering. "Y-yeah, I did--do, even. Part of why I was so pissed about his betrayal in the end is because I cared about him." He wiped his face with a tissue. "He wasn't exactly my friend in the normal sense, but he was here, a part of everything that everyone else was, going through this weird fuckin'... Adventure of sorts, even if it was so fucking terrifying, like, ninety percent of the time." 

"Even after what he did, you care for him?" He said. "You don't question for a moment that he never cared about you?" Gordon eyed the agent suspiciously. "I don't have a reason to believe that he didn't care about us, even if he did in his own, weird, fucked-up little way. Hell, he didn't even have any clear motivations, I would go so far as to say that he might've even been forced to do what he did." Gordon parroted the same sentiment that Benrey had expressed weeks before. "Who do you think could have been forcing him to do such a thing?" Gordon shrugged. "I don't know, Black Mesa, some other facility... I don't really see Gman actively forcing him to do something like that, I'm not really sure who could've forced him to do that." He sighed. "My money is on Black Mesa, though. Maybe they were trying to cover their tracks." He looked at the table and fidgeted with his sleeve. 

"I see." Said the standing agent, writing in his notepad. "And you don't think that this 'Benrey' could have thought that you caused the resonance cascade?" He asked. "Perhaps he was trying to punish you for it, as he was a security guard that was hyperobsessed with the thought of you stealing something, or possibly committing a crime of some kind, in spite of his hypocritical beliefs." Gordon raised a brow at the agent. "I don't think so, no. I mean, maybe?" He shrugged, making a face. "No, I don't believe it." He said. "Why are you so intent on the idea that Benrey was forced to do what he did?" The agent asked. "Did he tell you this and you left it out? If so, what else are you leaving out, Mr. Freeman?" The guard made no readable expression on his face, but his tone was accusatory, they knew something. 

"No, there's nothing I've kept from you. Maybe I missed some small details here and there, like him mentioning offhandedly that he was forced into doing this, or that he didn't want to do this, but I'm pretty sure I told you those things." Gordon started to get more and more suspicios, even irritated. "I can assure you that the most you have told me about Benrey not wanting to do this is Benrey mentioning that he wanted to go back and do it all over again." Gordon sighed. "Well, I'm sorry if I missed a detail, I'm not perfect unlike whatever the hell you guys are." The agents were silent for a second, but it was like they weren't even breathing or blinking. Gordon couldn't tell from behind the glasses. "I can assure you that we are human, Dr. Freeman."

"Would you please stop calling me that!?" Gordon said. "Call me anything but Dr. Freeman, I'm not Dr. Freeman anymore, I'm just Gordon." He seemed to get more irritated with the longer this conversation went on. "Noted." The standing agent said. 

"Gordon, for all intents and purposes, you believe that Benrey was forced into his actions that took place in your final fight?" Gordon nodded, and the agent wrote down something on his notepad again. "What all are you writing on that little notepad?" Gordon asked impulsively. "Just notes from the interview. Why?" The agent's question didn't seem genuine. "Does this make you nervous?" The agent said. Gordon shifted in his seat, looking away. "...No, I'm just curious." He said. The agent pressed him. "Curious?" He paused. "Or are you attempting to metagame?" Gordon shook his head. "No, nothing like that--" "Are you trying to control the situation...? Dr. Freeman?" Gordon glared at the agents. "Since when did you people become psychologists?" He snapped. The agents didn't show any emotion or surprise. "We are merely trying to conduct an investigation on the Black Mesa incident." The sitting agent said. "If you are being uncooperative, we may have to take you in." The standing one added. Gordon looked between the both of them, suddenly scared. "Are you talking about the police? You said you weren't going to arrest me!" The agents shook their heads. "No, we aren't talking about the police." Their blank looks only made Gordon's anxiety worse, and the longer either of them waited to reply, the more Gordon realized they weren't going to elaborate.

"For now, let's talk about the events leading up to the resonance cascade, just once more." The sitting agent said, breaking the tense air. "You were the one who pushed the test sample into the laser, no?" Gordon nodded. "I-I did." "And as a direct result of you choosing to take this action, the resonance cascade happened, no?" Gordon narrowed his eyes at the agents once more. "Are you trying to say that I caused the resonance cascade?" He asked, calmly. "That I was responsible for all those deaths, all that suffering?" "The short answer is yes, Dr. Freeman." The standing agent said. Gordon clenched his fists. "You're trying to upset me at this point, aren't you." He glared at them hard. "It seems to be working." The sitting agent said. 

"Why!" Gordon spat. "What is the point in all of this! You come back over a year after the incident happened, after you should already have all the information you need on the incident with Black Mesa, and for what? To talk to me? You should've done that ages ago!" He slammed his hands on the table. "And to imply that I was the one that caused the fucking resonance cascade when I was just following the orders I've been given by the company I work for!" He jabbed a finger into the sitting agent's chest, leaning forwards, on the verge of tears again. "If anything, you should put the blame on the people who started the experiment, the people who actively planned this out and spent money on working on it! I just did what I was told, because that was my job and I stayed there to get paid and I need money to live!" He leaned back, his fists balled and arms stiffly at his side. "It's not my fault Black Mesa did such a poor fucking job making sure nobody died as a result of their bullshit!" 

To punctuate the last sentence, the lightbulb above their heads immediately burst, causing Gordon to jump, and bathing the entire room in darkness. Gordon immediately grabbed his scarred arm, panicking. He pulled it to his chest as he hyperventilated, falling to his knees on the ground, and eventually onto his side. Under his breath, he only repeated the words, "No, no, no, no, no..." 

Above him, the sitting agent produced a lightbulb from seemingly nowhere and gave it to the standing agent, so that he can replace the broken one, while the previously sitting agent swept the glass on the table onto his right hand, and proceeded to dispose of it by putting it into his mouth, chewing, and swallowing. 

Gordon didn't register any of this. 

"Benrey," One of the agents said. "You may come out of where you are hiding to console your friend." Benrey was extremely hesitant to come out at first, but the agent continued. "We aren't going to take you back in, at least not just yet." Benrey came out of Gordon's pocket, shifting back into his human form as the agents watched, standing in the open doorway of the interrogation room. "We will be back soon, please stay here." Benrey glared at them as they walked out, and they gave no indication that they cared. 

Benrey scooped Gordon up in his arms, still unsure of what to do, as he wasn't really great at comforting people, so he did the only thing he could think of and just rocked him back and forth, singing sweet voice quietly. Singing was a coping mechanism Benrey had as a manner of self-soothing when he was overwhelmed, so he figured that it might help Gordon. Little by little, Gordon started breathing normally and calmed down a bit, leaning into Benrey. Then, he shot up. 

"Wait, aren't we--" He looked around himself to see that they were still in the interrogation room, but it was empty of agents. "Why the hell aren't you in my pocket!" He yelled, starting to get panicked again. Benrey grabbed his face and tried to calm him down. "Gordon," He said. "They know." Gordon put his hands over Benrey's, trying to calm down. He took in a deep breath before asking, "How did they know?" He asked. "I don't know, but when you started having that panic attack, they told me to take care of you, to come out of hiding and make you feel better." Gordon looked pensive for a moment, and sat up. "They told us to stay here, I don't know where they went." Benrey said. 

"They aren't going to try and kidnap you again?" Benrey shrugged. "They said they weren't gonna bring me in again, 'not yet'." Gordon looked worried. They heard footsteps outside, and Gordon ushered Benrey back into his pocket, but they didn't make it in time before the door opened. 

The two of them stared like a deer in the headlights at the people at the door. The two agents were back, this time behind someone with a labcoat. Benrey immediately felt threatened, and glared, baring his sharp teeth. 

"Well, Mr. Freeman," The scientist said. "Aren't you quite the spectacle?" 


	6. Glass Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let the tests begin!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for mentions of human experimentation, but it doesn't go super into detail. 
> 
> yes i'm alive, i didn't forget about this fic i just got stumped for a while, but now we should be continuing the story as normal! i don't think i'll be uploading as much as i did when i first started this fic, definitely not uploading something every day or anything, but i hope to continue writing this fic as normal. i have no idea where it's going, i'm not plotting it, i'm mostly going around by feel and making shit up as i go along, so not even i know how it's going to end 100%, but i have a bit of an idea, nothing solid though and it's very subject to change. 
> 
> anyways, i hope you like this chapter, can't wait for gordon's side of the story.

"Wh-what?" Gordon whimpered, on his knees on the floor, glass cleaned off the table but still surrounding him in dusty shards on the ground. 

This scientist was a man of average height, middle-aged with shoulder length salt and pepper hair. He gave a dark smile, forcing his laugh lines apart. He stepped forwards, and Benrey straight up growled, shocking Gordon, and the scientist jumped back a little, very clearly amused. He chuckled. 

"Oh-ho-ho," He bent down, putting his hands on his knees while Benrey just kept glaring at him. "Down, boy!" He didn't stop smiling. Benrey pushed a confused and scared Gordon out of the way, putting himself in front of the scientist. 

"What the hell do you want from us?" Benrey spat. "Well," The scientist stood up straight, dusting off his labcoat, then putting his arms behind his back, giving an intimidating smile to the two on the glass-covered ground. "We are a foundation made to do three simple things." He explained. 

Gordon's eyes went wide. 

The scientist lifted his hand counted the three things off on his fingers. "Secure," Gordon's breath hitched. "Contain," His hands shook. "Protect." Gordon turned his head upwards, looking at the scientist with a terrified expression, backing away slowly. 

"You guys are the SCP foundation." He said quietly. 

Benrey turned to Gordon, confused. "What is the SCP foundation?" 

The scientist chimed back in. "Oh, I am so glad you asked." He clapped his hands together, grinning wide, with Benrey snapping his head to look back at him, glaring. "The SCP foundation is made to contain and study anomalies." He said. "Anomalies?" Benrey asked. "Anomalies are anomalous individuals, entities, locations, objects, phenomena and so on operating outside of the bounds of natural law." Benrey, still glaring, but confused, leaned towards Gordon. "What the hell is natural law?" He asked. "Natural law is how everything is supposed to function under normal circumstances. Something that you and your dear friend do not abide by on any means." 

Benrey blinked. "W..Huh?" He said dumbly. "What, are you gonna get us, fuckin, arrested by the Natural Law police or some shit?" He grimaced. The scientist laughed and said, "No! Of course not, they aren't concerned with you." That only left the two on the floor more confused. "No, we want to classify you, or in Benrey's case, re-classify you." Gordon cocked a brow, looking to Benrey, but Benrey didn't seem to know what the scientist was talking about. "We would like to make sure what kind of threats to society that the two of you might be and secure you accordingly." He said. 

"Secure us?" Gordon said. "Like, lock us up?" He got a worried look on his face. "If you are considered dangerous enough to the public, yes." Gordon's already terrified expression turned to one of abstract horror. "B-but there's nothing anomalous about me!" He said. "I-I'm just a normal guy." The scientist clicked his tongue. "Ah, but that's where you're wrong, dear Mr. Freeman," He said. "You're actually surprisingly anomalous." Gordon raised a brow in terrified confusion. "What are you talking about!?" He crawled up onto his knees, seeming like he was preparing to stand up. "After the resonance cascade, it seems certain parts of you were... Altered in a way that you have not yet noticed." Gordon froze before standing up, panicked but confrontational. "What the hell are you talking about!? I'm just a fucking human guy, a guy who went through hell and left it behind!" The scientist pursed his lips and shook his head, clicking his tongue again. 

"Ah, wrong again. You didn't leave everything about Black Mesa behind, did you?" He said, looking to Benrey and raising a brow. Gordon looked to Benrey and his panicked confidence wavered a bit. "I-I'm still human." He said quietly. The distressed look on his face grew tighter. "I'm just a normal guy!" He shouted, and the glass shards on the floor leftover from the exploding lightbulb incident flew all around the room, away from Gordon. Both he and Benrey jumped when it happened, but Gordon's heart seemed to stop at the action. 

"Are you done with the 'I'm just Harry' stuff yet?" The scientist scoffed. Gordon just looked at his hands, silently shocked. "That's not--" He looked to the scientist desperately. "That's never happened before." He said. 

"The foundation has been watching you for a while, Gordon, and I have to say that you have never been more wrong." Gordon furrowed his brow. "What the hell are you talking about?" The scientist smirked. "Have you ever even bothered to think about why your windows are almost always broken or cracked?" Gordon looked to the floor, thinking about his shitty windows. "It's not because your apartment is terrible, Gordon. Your apartment is just fine." The scientist stepped forwards again, bending over to meet Gordon on his level. 

"It's you, Gordon." 

Benrey didn't know what to do other than to get in front of Gordon trying to protect him. 

"Now, if we can stand up like normal people and follow me, we can get you a nice checkup to prepare for study to get a good idea of how dangerous you might be to the public." 

Benrey grabbed onto Gordon's arm, looking nervous and defensive. "Don't." He said, but Gordon looked defeated. "What choice do I have, Benrey? I'm not human anymore." Benrey's face twisted up into something painful, and the grip on Gordon's arm loosened. 

"If you would be so kind, we would also like to analyze Benrey." The scientist said calmly and politely, however the entire experience of this 'interview' along with his tone left no room for saying no. Benrey curled up on the ground next to Gordon, not sure what to do now that Gordon had given up. 

Eventually, Gordon stood, and Benrey was forced to follow. The scientist gave a sick smile and nodded his head out the door. 

"Follow me." 

Gordon and Benrey followed the scientist down the hall, Benrey being filled with the most dread while Gordon seemed like he had just given up. 

When they all stepped into the lab, Benrey shrunk into himself a little bit, getting hit with a slew of bad memories. He stepped further behind Gordon, who didn't really seem to react. The whole situation was so surreal to him that he couldn't process it. He had just resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't human, and was probably going to spend the rest of his life in a lab.

Benrey's chest tightened when he saw the cold, steel tables, the beeping machines he didn't understand, the needles, the beakers with strange liquids... He hugged himself tighter, but no one seemed to notice. He was used to that. He didn't like being used to that anymore, though. 

The scientist instructed Gordon to sit in a chair, while he told the other scientists in the room what they were to do with him. However, he walked over to Benrey, who was already feeling threatened, and said, "You, however... We are taking you to a different lab." Benrey didn't like the sound of that, but he didn't know what choice he had at this point. Gordon had given up, and he was the one who got them all out of Black Mesa. With Benrey's lack of social skills and general understanding of how the outside world worked, he felt lost without Gordon. Even more so without the rest of the science team. They didn't seem to understand the outside world too well outside of Tommy, but at least they could misunderstand the world together. 

Benrey had no choice but to follow the scientist. 

Old habits die hard, and in Benrey's case, they die harder. He was so used to the monotonous routine and uncaring of the scientists back at Black Mesa that being at an SCP foundation facility triggered him back into the mindset he used to have. 

Wake up. 

Dread the day but don't think about it.

Eat breakfast. 

Tests. 

Break time for video games and fun stuff. 

More testing. 

Eat lunch. 

Back to tests. 

Another break time. 

Nap time, if he was lucky. 

Dinner. 

Nighttime routine, which was mostly just going to his room for the rest of the night. He'd usually stay up all night playing videogames, much to the irritation of the scientists when he was tired and whiny the next day, but they usually found ways to traumatize him into behaving. 

Instinctively, he grabbed onto the back of the scientist's coat. Something the scientists made him do to make sure he didn't get distracted and wander off. He eventually grew out of having to do that, but sometimes he still did, just out of habit. 

The scientist noticed, but didn't seem to mind. Or more like he just didn't care. 

They walked down the hallway further, and the scientist lead him into another room. This one was a dark, but then the scientist flipped on the lights. 

It was a smaller lab, with one cold, steel table, some computers and papers over to the right, and on the left there were things like microscopes and beeping machines he didn't understand. 

"You will be sitting on that table right there." The scientist pointed and Benrey did as he was instructed to silently. 

With that, the tests began. 

There were a lot of needles. The scientist took his blood quite a few times. It was red, but it was certainly not like human blood. It felt more oily, was a little thicker. 

There were sticky things attached to his face and chest, with wires coming out of them and attaching to one of the machines he didn't get. They itched a lot, but Benrey knew not to touch them. 

The machine printed out long paper with presumably had data on it that excited the scientist. Benrey didn't know what any of it meant, but it made him grin, and jump. He'd never seen any of the other scientists back at Black Mesa do that before. They rarely smiled. 

When the tests were over, the scientist lead Benrey to what he called a containment unit. It was just an eight by eight cube of a room sunk into the wall, with one huge glass panel at the front that you could see into. The room had a small bed bolted to the wall, a sink, a toilet, and a desk that was also bolted to the wall. There was a chair to go with it, but it wasn't bolted to the floor for some reason. 

The room's palette was made up of greys or silvers and whites. It was monotonous, boring. Like how his room used to be before he got rewards for good behaviour, such as videogame privileges in his room, and some comic books, a computer, stickers, blankets and pillows and sheets with different patterns. He did his best to make his bedroom at Black Mesa his home, and this was just another place to make his own.

It was just like the place he was at for a while after Black Mesa. 

The scientist pushed a button, and a door next to the containment unit opened, leading to a small hallway that lead to the unit's door, and he had Benrey go inside. 

When he went inside, he was filled with all kinds of nostalgia he didn't like. He didn't know what to do at this point, so he just crawled under the blankets of the bed bolted to the wall and tried to fall asleep. 

He cried. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jojo reference?

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is 1azybones send me hate for my terrible writing and worse fanart that i never post


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